Take an Active International Vacation with STRIVE Trips

Disclosure: This post is sponsored by STRIVE Trips who offered me a discount for their programs. As always all thoughts and opinions are my own.

If you’re anything like me, you’ve found that a great way to satisfy your sense of wanderlust is by taking race-cations. I’ve ran some races and planned some trips around the country and Canada in the past few years including the Seawheeze Half Marathon in Vancouver, Ragnar Las Vegas, and the Chicago Marathon (multiple times!).  

Ragnar Las Vegas home stretch!

This year and the next I think it’s time to add some more stamps to my passport and get out of North America. I was excited to recently be connected with this awesome company STRIVE Trips which organizes trips for adults featuring a balance of cultural immersion, active exploration and sightseeing, as well as daily options for athletic training (a.k.a RUNNING!). Don’t worry, if you aren’t a runner you can choose to walk or bike these excursions (or even skip out to spend time as you please).

For 2018, STRIVE Trips is offering two adult programs-one to Kenya and one to Peru. 

Let’s be honest, a mix of running, eating amazing food and travelling to a new country sounds like a perfect vacation to me! It’s pretty much what I do anyways, although a bit more heavy on the food and less so on the running part. Planning an international trip can be intimidating so it’s awesome that STRIVE Trips takes care of all the planning and also provides 24-hour-a-day support on the ground in the country and from the US based staff.

5 Last-Minute Valentine's Day Gifts in Baltimore

Disclosure: All thoughts and opinions are my own and are not affiliated with or sponsored by any of the aforementioned brands or businesses. I work for Charm City Run and CorePower Yoga, but the thoughts in this post do not reflect those of the companies. 

With February being a shorter month, I find that the days and weeks just fly by. That means that Valentine's Day is also in just two short days! If you have completely forgotten, do not fear! I am sharing a list of 5 easy, last-minute Valentine's Day gifts for the special people in your life from local businesses. Despite my dislike of the pressure of this one big day and the hiked-up prices of prix-fixe dinners for the holiday, I do really love having the holiday as a reminder to spend some time with your significant other or Valentine. I keep it pretty low key, with a Galentine's Day brunch the weekend before and a nice dinner with flowers from my boyfriend for the actual holiday. Pro tip-surprise your valentine with a gift or dinner the day before or after to avoid the rush and prix-fixe menus! In a busy world, sometimes we need a silly holiday to remind those special in our life how much we care about them. 

As you know, I love supporting small businesses, especially when there are so many amazing businesses right here in Baltimore. Here are 5 Last-Minute Valentine's Day gifts for your Valentine, Galentine, or anyone who could use a little love in their life. 

1. Chocolate-Covered Strawberries from Berries by Quicha

What says "I love you" more than chocolate-covered strawberries?! I planning on stopping by Berries by Quicha right here in Federal Hill in Baltimore to grab some of their amazing and unique chocolate-covered strawberries. They have flavors such as Reese, Bacon, and even a Ciroc-liquor infused chocolate-covered strawberry! Besides sounding tasty, their strawberries and special holiday packages look beautiful. 

{Source} 

According to their Facebook page, TODAY is the last day to pre-order for guaranteed selection for the holiday either via their website, store (920 Light St), or by calling at 410-440-3239. 

10 Awesome Holiday Gifts for Runners (Under $50) 2017

Disclosure: I am Lily Trotters and Momentum Jewelry ambassadors and receive complimentary & discounted merchandise from both brands. I love both brands and did not receive any compensation for inclusion in this post. I also am a coach at Charm City Run. All thoughts and opinions in this post are my own. 

So I've got lots to update the interwebs on, like how I ran the Philadelphia Marathon on Sunday. Say what?! This week on the agenda I just have some rest, recovery, Thanksgiving and leftovers eating, and of course holiday shopping. Can you believe it's already that time of year again? I have been resisting getting into the holiday spirit, but really we only have 5 weekends until Christmas so the time is now! Here's 10 awesome holiday gifts under $50 for the runners in your life (::hint::hint:: to all the special people in my life). 

10 Awesome Holiday Gifts Under $50 For Runners

1. Runner X4 Pint Glass ($10) and 6-pack of beer (recommended: Union Craft Brewing Duckpin Ale, price varies)

This is a perfect gift for that fellow runner and beer-lover in your life. Grab this super cool pint glass for $10 (that I was lucky enough to receive during the RW Half weekend) and a 6-pack of your favorite local beer. 

2. Pair of Lily Trotters compression socks ($48)

10 Favorite Things from the Runner's World Half Festival 2017

So I've been stalling writing any blog posts about the Runner's World Half Festival because I had such an amazing time and there is so much to say. It was an absolute honor and pleasure to be invited as part of the RW Half Run Crew. I left with sore legs, sweet bling, and new running friends! Since I love lists, I figured I'd start out my post-race weekend recap the way I blogged about what I was most excited about pre-RW Half Festival! Spoiler alert: some of the things I was excited about beforehand DID turn out to be amazing.

My Top 10 Favorite Things from the RW Half Festival Weekend (not in order!) 

1.  The people: The RW Half Run Crew and all the Runner's World employees I met were so nice (Oh and RUNNING WITH RYAN HALL WAS PRETTY FREAKING COOL TOO). We had a such a great group of people in the RW Half Run Crew. 

2. Meeting Ryan Hall: See above re:running with Ryan Hall. It was great to hear him talk about his kids and biggest tip about marathoning is to relax! He said he races best when he is relaxed. 

So I'm Boston Bound-Hello Boston Marathon 2018!

So my goal of getting accepted to run the Boston Marathon is becoming a reality. I received an email in my inbox last Sunday night that looked like this: 

I saw the subject line in my inbox and was like HOLY SH#&! 

Now I had put in my application on Friday when it opened up for qualifiers who had a  time over 5 minutes under the qualifying time. I was expecting to hear back on Monday, because silly me assumed people weren't working fast enough to verify results and get a bunch of emails out on Sunday night. So just randomly checking my email Sunday night as dinner was cooking literally really caught me by surprise and I yelled and then got a bit teary. So it was more like omgomgomgomgomogomg

And then randomly crying on and off. 

I celebrated with some prosecco and supermarket chocolate cake! Okay so really I was planning on having the cake before I got the email, but it was clearly meant to be.

Running a qualifying time with a big cushion this past year at the Chicago Marathon was really special. Like really FREAKING special. It's been weird since then when I'm talking to people about having another qualifying time with a cushion most likely to get me accepted into the race based on previous years, but not having that official acceptance. I've been saying "well I ran X time, but do not know if I'm officially able to run the race yet." That leads to me explaining that there are only 30,000 spots available for the race with 80% going to qualifiers and the remaining 20% of spots going to charity runners. Therefore in recent years more people apply with qualifying times then there are spots available. This year the cutoff below the qualifying time ended up being 3:23 (more info here). 

Join me at the 2017 Runner's World Half Marathon Weekend {Discount & Giveaway}

Today I'm sharing some really freaking exciting news. I literally yelled "OMGGGGGGG

when I saw this email slide into my inbox. 

I am SO FREAKING PUMPED to share that I'm a part of the 2017 Runner's World Half Run Crew and will be at the Runner's World Half & Festival. 

This year's events start October 20th in Bethlehem, PA and include a 5K, 10K, half marathon, kids races and trail race. There is also several multiple-race options including The Five & Dime (5K & 10K), The Hat Trick (5K, 10K, and Half), and The Grand Slam 26.2 Weekend Marathon. 

I've never attended or run any of the events in this festival, but I'm beyond excited to run in a new festival in a new area. I also have been a subscriber to Runner's World for approximately 4 years since around the time I ran my first half marathon so this is beyond exciting. 

Be Open with AfterShokz TrekzTitanium Wireless Headphones {Review}

Disclosure: Through my partnership as a SweatPink/FitApproach ambassador, I received a complimentary set of AfterShokz TrekzTitanium wireless headphones from AfterShokz in exchange for my review. As always, all thoughts and opinions are my own. 

I love me some tech-free, music-free runs. However especially as I've had some rough runs lately as I try to rebuild my base mileage or when I've needed to give myself a big pep talk to attempt 3-4 mile runs in this heat and humidity, I've been relying more on my Spotify playlists. I'm also highly annoyed by my headphones staying in my ears and dealing with headphone cords getting stuck to me. I'm a super sweaty person so even the "sweatproof" earbuds" I find myself adjusting and pushing back into my ear throughout a run. I seriously don't know what took me so long to try some wireless headphones. 

I'm super grateful I jumped at the chance to try out the AfterShokz TrekzTitanium bluetooth headphones.  

On the website you can choose from 4 color combos with black, and pick what measurements you want. It offers a mini size in addition to the regular, based on the length of the space between your ears. It took me 5 minutes to set-up after charging my headphones with a USB cord, mostly involving connecting the Bluetooth on my phone to the AfterShokz. 

I took them on an inaugural sweaty & humid Baltimore summer run and was pleasantly surprised. 

AfterShokz advertises the TrekzTitanium headphones as IP55 sweat resistant. They also use PremiumPitch+™ technology which gives a great sound with nice bass levels. I haven't let them run out of charge yet, but these are advertised as lasting for 6 hours of continuous music and/or calls on a single charge. Any weird blips in your music are related to your Bluetooth connection, not the headphones. 

Injury Update #3: Don't Call it a Comeback

In case you missed it, I was diagnosed with a 4th metatarsal stress fracture at the very end of October and survived almost 4 weeks in a boot doing zero exercise of any type. I posted my last injury update in JANUARY about PT and all that fun stuff. 

So I have taken a couple months off of blogging because I finished my last semester of classes for grad school (::woop::woop) and had a month off school completely and working for 2 weeks before starting my clinical rotations. Plus there wasn't much to say. 

I got some longer runs in to run the Love Run Half Marathon in Philadelphia after March which I completely in okay time, but feeling crappy. It was too much too soon. I took a week off afterward because of intermittent soreness in my foot the following week (the foot felt fine during the race and the days after).

This spring was my hardest semester of classes and with being busy it was really hard for me to get into a solid running/workout routine again. I feel like I'd skip/miss workouts and then do a bunch of running, etc. and never get a stable base of 15-20 miles. I'd feel some weird soreness in my healed foot (same feeling of the initial injury almost) every couple of weeks that freaked me out and made me take it easy/off running for a few days (or a week in a couple of cases). I even went back to my ortho in April to talk to him and made him do an X-ray just to try to ease my anxiety.  Yes, he thinks I'm crazy. 

So if you are coming back from an injury, it may not be as straightforward as you think. There will probably be some ups and downs along way. 

Now it's July and almost time to start Philadelphia Marathon training which I'm keeping low-key because I've got my eyes on the dream of being healthy for Boston 2018. I still feel not as fast or fit as I was pre-injury, but I've built my mileage up to all 20-24 miles per week in June. I need to do better at my PT exercises, stretching, foam-rolling still (story of my life? most runners' lives?). 

However I feel like I've been really consistent the past month (not working or being in grad school classes/fieldwork, haha) which has been a great reset.  I feel like I'm at a good place where I'm just okay. All my running buddies who I have talked to in the past 6 weeks are like "so you're healed, now?" or "so you're back to normal now?". I'm not feeling that way, but I'm good. I even ran a 6:06 mile on a whim for the Strava #mymile mile PR challenge so I know the speed and fitness is in me-it just needs to be trained and tuned up. I've been doing some fun runs, having good workouts with friends, and re-fueling like a boss (that never stopped!). I'm running and loving life right now.  

Now off to do some resistance band hip and glute exercises...

#5ummit NECS_MA trail race action shot